Aristophanes and Menander: Three Comedies

"No one, but no one, ever translated ancient comedy like Douglass Parker, and his death left a chasm in the landscape. This posthumous publication of three of Greek theatre's wildest plays, edited and presented by a scholar as eminent and learned as Timothy Moore, is not just something to welcome, it is something to celebrate."
     —William Levitan, Grand Valley State University

SKU
27193g

Peace • Money, the God • Samia

Translated by Douglass Parker
Edited, with Introductions and Notes, by Timothy J. Moore

September 2014 - 256 pp.

Grouped product items
Format ISBN Price Qty
Cloth 978-1-62466-186-0
$48.00
Paper 978-1-62466-185-3
$16.00
Instructor Examination (Review) Copy 978-1-62466-185-3
$3.00

eBook available for $14.50. Click HERE for more information and purchasing options.

Three Comedies features the work of three dramatic geniuses of the glorious, no-holds-barred tradition of ancient Athenian comedy. Here Aristophanes, the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of Old and Middle Comedy meets Menander, elephant in the room of New Comedy, in a match made possible by Douglass Parker—if not Athenian exactly, or even ancient, possibly the maddest chameleon ever to absorb the true colors of an ancient choral song, transpose a lost pun, or channel a venerable, giant, dung-eating cockroach for the benefit of those who couldn’t be there the first time.

Timothy J. Moore offers concise and informative introductions and notes to Parker’s brilliant translation of Aristophanes' fantastical Peace and Money, the God and Menander’s lively, domestic Samia—and includes, as a bonus, Parker's James Constantine Lecture at the University of Virginia, "A Desolation Called Peace: Trials of an Aristophanic Translator."

 

Reviews:

"Douglass Parker (1927-2011) did so much to transform how Greek and Latin may be translated and adapted for modern audiences that it is hard to overstate his influence . . .  
     "In putting together the introductory materials for the volume and individual plays, [Timothy] Moore is an ideal editor, [choosing] to let the comic bite and verve of the three plays that follow speak for the eloquence and skill of the translator. . . . Each [of the translations included] is singular yet all bear witness to Parker’s talent. It is a particular boon to have a lively and stage-tested translation/adaptation of Ploutos (Money, the God), given the renewed interest in the play in the wake of the global economic turndown. Part of the fun of reading each play is that Parker’s vision for the production fairly leaps off the page . . . 
     "[This volume] continues Parker’s aim of presenting plays that are accessible, performable, and scholarly; and thanks to Moore’s [inclusion of Parker’s James Constantine Lecture at the University of Virginia], we are presented with a discussion of the craft of translation and adaptation from one of the greats. . . . As it stands, this lecture is also a reflection of the ethos behind the style of translating that Parker, Richmond Lattimore, and William Arrowsmith gave birth to in the middle of the last century and that has revolutionized how we read and translate Classics today.” 
     —Karen Rosenbecker in Bryn Mawr Classical Review

 

"No one, but no one, ever translated ancient comedy like Douglass Parker, and his death left a chasm in the landscape. This posthumous publication of three of Greek theatre's wildest plays, edited and presented by a scholar as eminent and learned as Timothy Moore, is not just something to welcome, it is something to celebrate."
     —William Levitan, Grand Valley State University

 


About the Authors:

Douglass Parker (1927–2011) was Professor of Classics, University of Texas, Austin, where he taught for more than forty years. Both a Guggenheim Fellow and a finalist for the National Book Award for Translation for his The Congresswomen (Aristophanes' Ecclesiazusae, University of Michigan Press), he was described in one of his own syllabi as "rarely [thinking] of himself as an academic, but rather as an itinerant trombonist who took a wrong turn about 1946." His and Deena Berg’s Plautus and Terence: Five Comedies is also published by Hackett.

Timothy J. Moore is John and Penelope Biggs Distinguished Professor of Classics, Washington University in St. Louis.